


until we meet (again)

by ghostiess



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, I also kill everyone multiple times, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates, a few of them graphically, and a whole host of other soul-related quandaries, everyone is in love and no-one gets their happy endings for a long time, it's also in like first person of some mysterious soul-collecting entity, it's got, seriously I run all the way from Ancient Greece to a modern setting I don't know how this happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostiess/pseuds/ghostiess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They promise the afterlife. Why must they always promise the afterlife when I cannot give them this?</p><p>reincarnation au: two millennia of lives, where they find each other again and again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	until we meet (again)

**Author's Note:**

> All characters based entirely on the miniseries, and no disrespect meant to the real people of Easy Company or WWII.
> 
> Also, thank you to my best friend Emma for beta-ing. You are truly my North Star (beautiful tropical fish/precious sugar cookie).
> 
> Bonus points for anyone who can work out who everyone is when I'm not using their real names!

The first time I drop them all together, it is an experiment. They were, each of them, fierce in their last lives. The best of the best, warriors, commanders and hunters, their hands stained with blood.

I wondered, if I put them all together, if they might achieve something great.

It is Ancient Greece, and I watch them from the grassy hills, their bronze armour shining in the golden light, spears, bows, and swords turning in their hands. They are an army, a collection of souls born for war, and they are fast becoming _mine._

They don’t own the names I have chosen for them, this I cannot control. I can choose where they are born, the circumstances in which they will live, but I do not choose their names, nor their actions. This is down to them and them alone.

They are at war, as they so often will be, and they are fighting on foreign sands. Their lives are all turmoil, and blood and sweat, and yet still they find each other. They find the other souls I have claimed; they take each other as kindred, as friends and even lovers.

One, with green eyes that reflect gold in the sun, finds the soul he lived with in the last life.

His name means power -  _Kratos_ , in this life - and he is powerful. He is fast and accurate and he never misses with his bow. His companion would swear that he was one of the Gods if he did not know better

Chariton, his companion, is quiet and responsible and takes no joy in the slaughter around him. His name means grace and kindness and this is what he offers; circumventing Kratos’ terrifying reputation with his own kind words.

They lie in their tent at night, whispering promises to each other - that they will be together in this life and the next, together in the afterlife. I want to grant them this.

“ _You are mine_ ,” Kratos whispers. Chariton smiles, slipping his hand against the sand-bitten cheek of his lover.

The others question their unconventional relationship, but years into the war they have stopped caring. They know they will not see their families again, start seeing their comrades as the family they lost. Start taking their own lovers.

It pains me, when from the grassy hills I watch the final battle, and see them all fall. One after another, they are pierced with arrows and spears, cut down by men in chariots.

Chariton is caught with an arrow - it sweeps through his shoulder, leaving him gasping on the sand, the fine grains turning a deep red below him. Kratos sees this. He howls, and the guttural sound reaches me ten leagues away in the hills.

The frenzy that follows is all his. The army falls away around him, leaving him soaked in their blood as he fires arrow after arrow at them, resorting to slashing their throats with a dagger when his arrow supply dwindles. Eventually he falls into the sand next to Chariton, clutching his body to him with wet hands, sobbing.

He does not notice when a prince from the army they are fighting creeps up behind him. He barely registers the attack, but for the widening of his eyes as the warm bronze blade slices across his neck.

All he sees is the spurt of his own blood as is sprays forward, covering Chariton, and the red sand coming to meet him.

I have lost all of my souls in this battle, and I am tired. I cannot give them the afterlife they promised one another, but I vow that I will give them better lives the next time. They deserve that much; they deserve the love they knew in this life.

* * *

Two of the souls meet, somewhere in Ancient Rome. They haven’t found the others, and they probably won’t, not this time, for I have dropped them far away. This time is for them, and them alone.

They own names different from their last, wear bodies that don’t quite match them yet. They only recognise each other by their eyes (the eyes are the windows to the soul, as they will learn time and time again) - one has the liquid brown eyes common of their people, the other bears the startling blue eyes of the Gods, and when they find each other in this lifetime, that’s how he is perceived. A God, with the wealth and power of his father behind him.

When they meet it is on an unequal footing; one of them is a servant boy, and the other noble-born, yet they are so young that all they see in each other is a playmate, and begrudgingly they are allowed this.

They run the grounds after each other, dodging and weaving the pillars, taking shade in the groves of trees that spring up in the courtyard, listening for one of their mothers to call for them.

“ _Ioseph! Amatus!_ ” It is always Ioseph’s mother, because she is the servant and not the lady of the house, but that suits them both, because she is warm and funny and lets them play as long as possible.

They sleep in different parts of the house, but more often than not Ioseph creeps into Amatus’ room, nudging him awake in the moonlight so they could play more, whisper secrets to each other in the dark, and fall asleep tangled together hours later.

They are forced out of this as they grow older, one is pushed into lessons and one into service. They play less, though they still sneak away to a secluded part of the grounds to whisper secrets, if only now in the battling heat of summer or the winds of winter.

They are in the grounds under the welcoming shade of an olive tree, after one of Amatus’ lessons. They are both just shy of their fifteenth birthdays, and they have grown with each other. This is a world where you only get one shot at being alive, and there is nothing stopping them except the distance in social status, and a world where it is not deemed normal.

Their lips press together, and no-one sees them.

Ioseph no longer sees him as the blue-eyed God he once did - now Amatus is _his_  blue-eyed God, and his touch blazes up the insides of his wrists in the night, and his lips trace the sides of his jaw and the hollow of his throat and everywhere possible to touch, he does, and it sets them both on fire.

Now they don’t share secrets in the night because they  _are_  the secret, they’re the shame of damp sheets and sticky skin under the cool night breeze, and they can never, never tell anyone.

When Ioseph’s mother admonishes him in the mornings, asking where he has been, he tells her he was with Amatus. She clucks and tells him that they are both men now, that they cannot keep playing childish games through the night any longer.

He ducks his head, tells her that he knows this.

He can’t tell her that the games they play now are not the same childhood games she thinks of.

They get to sixteen before anyone finds them out - it is Amatus’ father, and they are in the grove, bodies pressed tightly to each other and hands entwined, and they both scream for each other when they are separated, a household guard dragging Ioseph across the grounds, Amatus’ father with his hands around Amatus’ waist as he struggles to reunite with his friend, his lover.

They know then, their souls, that this is how it’s supposed to be for them. They’ll follow each other into the abyss - into the afterlife, whatever that may be for them - and back again, they will find each other time and time again for as long as it takes for them to get their happy ending.

They scream this across the grounds, this promise. They promise the Gods, their families, and most importantly themselves, that they will never be parted.

They _are_  parted, because neither live to see seventeen; one is killed in the struggle, and one takes his own life days later.

I frown. Their lives were short, and tragic, and not what was intended for them this time around. There is no war here; this was their reprieve, a gift for the struggles of their previous life, and these two threw it down because they wanted - no,  _needed_ \- to be together.

* * *

I try to keep the souls together, I try to keep them from being born for centuries, but eventually I am called upon to release them once more.

This time, they are born to the Old Norse people, who worship gods of thunder and mischief, and sail the seas to conquer lands.

One of my souls is born to a King, has red hair and blue eyes, and a name that I loathe to say because it is not his, not really:  _Trygve_. Trustworthy.

And he is. He keeps court with other boys his age; Ragnvaldr, Hallvard and Steinarr. They are all mine. There are others, wandering the lush landscape, but I cannot make them stay together. Their choices are their own.

I know, at least, that only these four will be drawn into the fighting. The others will get a reprieve once again.

It is some time in spring, the flowers are growing again, and Trygve is learning to fight. He is good, but much better at commanding. Ragnvaldr is the best of them with weapons, quick and agile. Hallvard spars him and loses, spars him and wins only once. Trygve laughs, his favourite companion Steinarr beside him, bored.

They glance at each other, and Trygve has a way of looking at Steinarr like he’s the one that hung the stars in the sky. I know the look; I’ve seen my souls look at each other that way for centuries.

They sneak off and run through the forests, leave before it’s light and return when it’s dark. No-one sees the stolen kisses, their hands linking through the rush of a waterfall, Steinarr rolling Trygve beneath him on the moss banks.

They are each other’s in this life.

“ _I want you_.”

They are each other’s until the fighting starts; other kingdoms invade, and they are all asked to hold weapons. They fall, as they always do. Hallvard first, whipped across the chest with an axe as a rider startles past him. Other fighters jump in, taking his place.

Trygve loses sight of Ragnvaldr in the battle, swerving between attackers and their own men and women.

(Their viking women are vicious, brave. One that had her eyes on Hallvard screeches when she sees him on the ground and lashes out at the nearest foe.)

Instead, he grabs Steinarr by the back of his shirt, dragging him out of the fight and into one of his father’s fine halls. Steinarr rounds on him, his dark eyes burning - he had wanted to stay, to avenge the deaths he had seen, the ones that had pierced him as real as if they had been spears in the hands of his enemies. Trygve won’t let him. He holds all the power in this situation, he’s the prince and Steinarr is just another son of a land owner.

He sees the look Trygve gives him, and it’s full of thinly-veiled fear. He is trying to keep it together. Steinarr extends his arms, letting Trygve fall into them. He whispers to him; it will be fine. We are together.  _I love you_.

It is not fine - their king has been killed, their people are mostly dead. They have surrendered, and the pair are still locked in their embrace in the hall. They question each other on what to do now, and have no time to answer, because the door is splintered in and they are dragged out by their feet, kicking and screaming.

The king that has invaded their lands knows Trygve when he sees him - says that his hair is the colour of fire, but his soul is as wet as water. I growl, I know this is not true. My souls are strong, all of them, and this one’s soul is the reason for his fiery head, he just hasn’t had the time to grow into it yet.

They are both only fifteen.

The king - the new king of their lands now - wonders out loud what to do with them. Which one should die first? He asks. He has not missed the way their eyes widen at each other - fear, love. Which will hurt more; killing the prince in front of the boy, or the boy in front of the prince?

In the end, he kneels Trygve in the mud, lets him have his last words.

“ _I will see you again_.” Is how it roughly translates, but it’s flecked with pain and love. The people around them finally notice the way they look at each other.

The blade slices through the back of his neck, and he slumps forward, the blood running into his hair and pooling at his knees.

Steinarr is dragged next to the body of his dead love. He is pushed onto his knees in the warm blood, where his dull eyes see only the fire of his friend extinguished, and not the rusted sword swinging for the muscle of his neck. There is no reason for him to be alive any longer.

Both of them are now dead, and I have failed them again. How many times must I fail my souls before they get the ending they deserve?

* * *

There were lives in between this. Times when they lived with a modicum of happiness; and I am ashamed to admit that it was because I let them be born in the wrong bodies.

My healer, blessed with a soothing soul and gentle touch, was born as the second daughter of a wealthy family. She fell in love with the youngest son of a family of travellers, one with copper hair and warm eyes that caught her across a marketplace. They had a happy life, with many children, and she only ever let herself think that she was born in the wrong body in the quiet of the night, when those children would not hear her sob.

One of my souls skipped everywhere. This one met a girl with burnt orange hair, who smiled and smiled and never stopped but for when she confided in him: I am not supposed to be a girl. He nodded and said he understood, and smiled and kissed her.

I told myself, watching them from around corners and through glass,  _next time._ Next time you must be good to them again. This is what their happiness looks like.

* * *

I thought I was being good to them. I let all of them be born within four years of each other, in the same country, with noble parents. They would meet each other, in the right bodies, so they could love each other as they were meant to.

Alas, religion was at the forefront of life, and there were crusades, and they could not love each other but in secret, and even then it hurt them more than it healed them. It was wrong, they told their lovers as their backs were against stone walls bearing crosses.

“ _I don’t care._ ” One would say, just as the other turned, pulling on the collar of their tunics.

“ _You should_.”

It did not stop them. They were Knights Templar, men of Christ and of God, but they were not wrong in loving one another, in being brothers in arms.

The worst is when they are arrested, all of them, in October. There had been rumours, but nothing was confirmed until they were carted off, ropes burning their wrists, exchanging furtive glances with each other, each thrown into his own cell, alone and cold.

They’re tortured, confessions demanded. When this fails to work, because they are strong and they  _believe_  and they know they have done nothing wrong - and certainly not what they are accused of - they are hauled into a room together, fourteen of them, and tied on wooden chairs circling the room.

I sit in the middle. They cannot see me, I own no corporeal form. And I cannot see them, because when the first strike finds it’s mark, I close myself off.

They see each other being whipped, struck, sliced, and it hurts them. The room is ringing with their screams. I stop identifying whether they are screaming in pain or for each other. They confess to crimes they knew nothing of - to spitting on the cross, worshipping false idols - and to crimes they did commit. Loving each other.

The room is awash with sticky blood before the night is through. The torture went well past the confessions, becoming a sport for their inquisitors.

I feel some of their souls blink out of my consciousness. I lose track of how long it lasts, but some time later they are being held accountable for their crimes against God. They are tied to stakes in the square and set alight. There are only ten of them remaining at this point, and soon there will be none.

The smoke curls up in grey tendrils, snaking the length of their bodies and twisting into their faces. Flames lick their calves as they struggle to muffle their screams. They fail in this; they call for one another, using names I cannot see them use.

They promise the afterlife. Why must they always promise the afterlife when I cannot give them this? There is nothing after this, just a long line of lives until I am told that I can stop.

When the fires finally engulf them, the heat scorching the insides of their throats all the way to their lungs, they fall silent in death. They have fought their way here in the name of God and they were punished for it.

I wonder how many more times I will have to put them in bodies bound to the fickle human God, where what their souls want is punishable by death.

* * *

I keep my souls close. They are my children, and I will not part with them, not after they all died together the last time. The Fates allow me nearly four hundred years with them, little glowing balls of light that dance around me, not knowing anything but darkness, but then they begin to insist.

They must be sent back into the world.

I set them all down in the Americas, a new nation. I choose for them Salem, a place of peace, hoping to keep them safe in this strange world of Puritans. I have seen them suffer through vengeful Greek gods, their Roman counterparts, the old gods of Norse and the first vestiges of a mono-religion. I can surely see them safely through this.

I watch them play as children in the village; they have found each other early, and some of them are even wearing the names I had picked for them so long ago.  _David, Edward, Richard, George, Joseph, William…_

They are all here again, even if some do not have the right names yet, and everything is at peace. I watch as they splash in the rivers and help their mothers sweep and sometimes I sneak into the back of the church to watch them solemnly listen to the preacher preach.

They grow older quickly, sometimes I forget just how quickly human time moves. They are almost men, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen, and they are working as blacksmiths and carpenters and other jobs around town. One has found himself in book-keeping.

They stop playing games, and start taking wives. Well, most of them. But they remain close, my little collection, and this is what draws unwanted attention when a fever sweeps the town.

There are  _witches_  amongst them!

The unusual relationship they have with one another is suspicious; sneaking away from their families to meet each other, talking in hushed tones in the corner of the square. Then someone says it: they are  _warlocks._  They worship the Devil!

 _No_ , I think,  _they merely worship each other._

It is only a whisper, but rumours spread fast in this small town, and fear turns to hate. Once again they are imprisoned, in stone cells beneath the court, or in wooden rooms with big brass locks, alone and accused, without each other. Tortured for confessions.

Thumb-screws, dunking, pressing, they survived it all, and not one confessed. They were hardy souls, and they did not worship the Devil.

Brought to trial together, they stand in the dock before the town, before a judge, and before accusers. They do not tremble, but one surreptitiously slides his hand into the grasp of another, and no-one sees.

A child is brought forward and speaks of how she saw them together in the trees, dancing around a fire and praising the Devil.  _George_  huffs; the child is lying.  _Richard_  glares at him and he quiets.

Another witness is brought before them, spewing tales of seeing them curse the crop fields out past the old well.

It is a long and arduous process, between which times they are pushed back into their cells without the chance to speak to one another. They whisper their names through the iron bars in the stone cells, or through cracks in the wooden rooms.

“ _Please_ ,” They say, willing the others to hold on. This is all a mistake, they will see that eventually. “ _You have to stay strong._ ”

They are not fed right, and begin to wither away. One lifts his shirt and sees bones where flesh should be. They are all like that by the end, when they swing in the wind at Gallows Hill.

I watched them march my souls up there, to a grassy piece of land. It’s like the one from where I watched them die on the sand, only now I must watch them die in the grass.

One by one a rope is slipped around their necks, their last words each other’s names and begs of forgiveness, the floor give way beneath them. The crack of their necks snapping.

Most do not get that luxury; their necks to not snap and their bodies writhe and fight as the air is closed off, eventually dropping limp as their souls float away.

I am thankful that none of them promise an afterlife this time, not even  _David_  or _Joseph_ , who have, time after time, promised each other that. It makes it easier when I keep them for myself for another hundred and fifty years.

* * *

I’ve had to give them another life. France, in the middle of rebellion. It’s short and not-so-sweet, and full of gunpowder and tears. They’re scattered again, paired up with souls that aren’t their companions, all but my healer and my copper-haired boy.

They’re together, in the streets shouting for freedom and revolution and trying to get through school and trying to get through each other.

Have their lives always been about freedom? They fight enough wars for it, died enough for it.

They have met with others who share the same views, who hatch plans of barricades and dying for your country.

But these two,  _Eugene_  and  _Édouard_  with their french-twisted names, skirt around each other in political meetings and hardly ever exchange one word in the way of the other. It makes it all that much worse when it is dark and raining and they are defending a pile of debris in the street, men in uniforms aiming cannons and guns at their backs.

It is then when one of them is shot, clean through the middle, and no-one is there to help so the other leans over their dying body and says, “ _I knew you before. I will know you after_.” And they both ache with death, following each other into the dark, little spirals of light coming home.

All of them die in that battle again, all of them having made promises of forever. A forever I still cannot give.

* * *

The time is close for them. I can feel it in my shadows. This was the time they were meant for. The world is exploding, and it has begun to call on old souls to fill the bodies it births in bursts. That is how they end up with cruel souls again.

I don’t hesitate to let them go this time, even knowing what they will face. They are the strongest they have ever been, and I have to believe that they are ready.

I drop them across a nation, a few years apart. They are not to meet each other until the time is right.

I watch a few of them grow - they’ve got the right names and faces and dispositions this time; they suit themselves fully.

 _Carwood, Ronald, Lewis, Richard, Donald, George, Edward, Eugene, David, Joseph, William, Joe, Harry,_  even  _Warren,_  my skipping soul. It’s sad that I have had to set them down in such despairing times, but I can see in them that they are stronger for it.

When the nation calls for war, they are all there, my soldier souls. They have known this life before.

They train hard, field-stripping killing machines, running up hills and marching for miles, jumping out of airplanes mid-flight.

And they have found each other again, even if they refuse to acknowledge it. They know each other’s footfalls and shadows in the night, can identify each other blind and deaf, and they are full of pride at their achievements.

They are brothers, nothing more, not yet. Maybe this is the life they live because they never make it anything more than brotherhood.

I am wrong, and this does not surprise me.

They jump, surely to their deaths, but they survive and traipse through a foreign country, guns and brothers at their sides, just as they have been taught by their commanders.

One of them is Richard -  _Winters_  to all of them now. And Lewis ( _Nixon_ ), his best friend, but they still share that look I had seen them give each other when they were wearing Norse names and rolling in moss at fifteen.

All through France and into Austria they share a special connection, something that they never act on. It is war, and Richard is a paragon of stability, and he cannot be distracted by his best friends creeping fingers or shameless smiles.

David and Joseph - now  _Webster_  or Web, and  _Liebgott_ \- they fight each other on everything, and I’m unsure as to how this came about, because all I can see are two Roman boys who grew up with one another, making each other their secret. They become that secret again, hidden in bedrooms in Haguenau and Austria, wiping angry tears off of cheeks and whispering apologies for missing Bastogne.

Bastogne took my skipping soul. I always lose him one way or another; in every life he died young. They call him  _Skip_  here. At least this time he found the burnt orange smile, in the right body. They are best friends, and I think,  _this is how they were supposed to be from the start._ Platonically connected until the end.

He still hangs around, a little ball of light that follows Donald  _Malarkey_  into the darkest of spaces, right up until the moment he knows that his friend is safe, and then he flies back into my shadows and home.

My green-eyed soul has picked up some mysterious traits: he’s almost a kleptomaniac, who may or may not have shot twenty prisoners of war. He is not the Greek I remember, but then neither is his companion soul.

Carwood Lipton - _Lip_  - is more patient than I remember, more focussed on keeping his boys safe. He and Ronald  _Speirs_  don’t even meet properly until they’ve been bombed to hell and back, and then suddenly they’re in a beautiful church, staring at each other. Ronald out-ranks him again, but the way his green eyes reflect gold is something Carwood thinks he remembers, and he is just itching to reach out and touch a wind-bitten cheek.

I smile when they become tentative friends. I could ask more of them, but I know that they both have families at home and they are both people with boundaries in this life.

Others filter in around them:  _Harry_  has a happy smile that he uses often. William, my  _Wild Bill,_  has his friends in Joe and Edward (right up until he is wounded in the forest).  _George_  is a wild ride of energy, and he even looks like the little ball of light that used to bop against me in the shadows; he keeps them all together in high spirits.

 _Eugene_ heals people again - he has an aptitude for it, always has through the centuries. He even stumbled upon the copper-haired soul, who goes by  _Babe_ here, though he never gives him the satisfaction of this name, always calling him Edward.

I can’t ask more from them that what they give each other so freely: comfort in the face of fear, maybe a hint of something more, after the war.

They all look good in their dress greens at the end of it. They’ve been through hell and emerged on the other side, a little worse for wear, but capable of living long lives. It’s more than I could have asked for.

This is almost their happy ending.

* * *

I try to hold on to my skipping soul. The others are out living lives, and I do not watch them, cannot bear to when they have all separated and gone home. The glimmer of hope I saw in David and Joseph disappeared, as it did in the others.

Skip is all I have when they ask me to separate from him. There is a boom in the population. They need another soldier.

 _You always need soldiers_ , I think, as I let him go again.

He grows up happy, through times that are easy for him. It is not easy for long; he is drafted into another war, somewhere on the other side of the world. I follow him, because what else am I going to do?

He’s clutching a gun again, trekking through forests and swamps and killing, killing, killing. There are drugs floating around and he wills himself not to use them, but what he sees is often too much, and he falls into that rabbit hole.

At one point, a little ball of light finds us in that foreign land. It smells like salt water and I know instantly that David has come home. He hovers around me, and around my skipping soul.

It ends again, abruptly, as he is shot through the neck, and now I have two balls of light to take home, away from this mess of humanity.

* * *

I give them both another life, while I wait for the rest of them. They don’t go to any wars, but they are unhappy because they are alone.

They both die in freak accidents at the turn of a new millennium.

By this time, a few more souls have come home. Joseph came back first, a little pulsing light, followed by six others.

I am being being pressured into releasing them again -  _too many births!_  The Fates cry.  _Not enough souls!_

I hold fast. They go out all together or they do not go at all. That is how it was always supposed to be.

We wait for the other souls to join us, and soon we are waiting on just one. We don’t mind. I am glad that they had long lives, full of as much happiness as they could find.

* * *

They are all together again, and I say,  _you can go now._

I release most of them in the same city at the same time. By pure coincidence, I make my skipping soul an Irish twin with the burnt orange smile. They are less than eleven months apart. A few I release a year later, still in the same city.

And they find each other. They live on the same streets and go to the same schools and I rejoice when their parents give them all the right names again, no matter how strange they might sound in this time.

It’s not a time of running through forests; it’s more a time of gripping gaming controllers, pushing each other over buckets of popcorn in dark rooms, of never calling only texting, and still, still they have fulfilling childhoods and promise their friends forever.

It is the first day of high school for some of them, the first day of sophomore year for the others, and they are all standing outside of the entrance. A line of gangly limbs on fourteen year olds, fifteen year olds, laughter spiralling out of them as  _George_  makes another joke and  _David_  and  _Joseph_  fight again, even as their palms slick with sweat at how tight they are holding one another.

Another pack of boys approach them, and I am surprised to see a shadow like me tailing them, even more surprised when I recognise their souls.

They were in Greece, in Salem, in France and the War and all the lives in between.

“ _Hey, Perco!_ ” One of mine calls, knowing one of the other boys. They are friends, and quickly they are all rushing out greetings and smiles and  _how was summer_ ’s.

I take a step back, finding that the other shadow has darkened the space next to me.

 _“They are yours?”_  I ask.

_“Yes,”_

_“You have been everywhere I have.”_

_“Mine were meant to be with yours. I tried to keep them together.”_

_Eugene_  has an arm firmly around his copper-haired soul. They got to each other early this time, barely thirteen, and never even looked at anyone else. Sometimes I wish they would; too many early starts have gone wrong for them.

_“Are they going to be happy this time?”_

_“Do you think they will?”_

_Ronald_ has been giving  _Carwood_  that look since summer began and he’s doing it again now. It’s almost possessive, and I can hear his Greek voice from so long ago saying  _you are mine_. Carwood notices and his cheeks colour.

 _“Yes, they’ll be happy this time.”_  I settle, but something else grabs my attention. All of them are paired off as they were in their first lives, mingling amongst their old friends.

 _“This is their last life.”_ I realise.

 _“Is it?”_  It asks back, teasing.

_“I think so. They don’t need us any more.”_

The light sprays out around them. They don’t need me.

 _Richard_  begins herding them all into the school, and they groan and kick up a fuss but go willingly, hooking their arms around their friends, dragging their backpacks on the ground across the asphalt. He stops when they're all a few feet away to knock his best friend,  _Lewis_ , on the arm, and kiss his cheek.

They’re doing everything too fast, but they’re used to dying young. And if this means that my souls, my band of brothers, will be together the longest of all their lives, then I can leave them now and know that this, _this_  life is their happy ending.

They can live these lives together, and I can give them their promises of infinity. Two millennia, and they will all finally have their forevers.


End file.
